I eagerly combed through that report, which (predictably) hadHong KongandSingaporeas the top two jurisdictions. I was glad to see that the United States climbed to #11.

The good news is that America had droppedas low as #18, so we’ve been improving the past few years.

The bad news is that the U.S. used to bea top-5 countryin the 1980s and 1990s.

But let’s set aside America’s economic ranking and deal with a different question. I’m frequently asked why European nations with big welfare states still seem like nice places.

My answer is that they are nice places. Yes, they get terrible scores on fiscal policy, but theytend to be very pro-market in areas like trade, monetary policy, regulation, and rule of law. So they almost always rank in the top-third for economic freedom.

Moreover, there’s more to life than economics. Most European nations also are nice places because they arecivilizedand tolerant. For instance, check out the newly releasedHuman Freedom Index, which measures both economic liberty and personal liberty. As you can see,Switzerlandis ranked #1 and Europe is home to 12 of the top 16 nations.

And when you check out nations at the bottom, you won’t find a single European country.

Instead, you find nations likeVenezuelaandZimbabwe. Indeed, the lowest-ranked Western European country is Greece, which is ranked #60 and just missed being in the top-third of countries.

Having now engaged in the unusual experience of defending Europe, let’s take a quick look at the score for the United States.

As you can see, America’s #17 ranking is a function of our position for economic freedom (#11) and our position for personal freedom (#24).

For what it’s worth, America’s worst score is for “civil justice,” which basically measuresrule of law. It’s embarrassing that we’re weak in that category, but notoverly surprising.

Anyhow, here’s how the U.S. score has changed over time.

Let’s close with a few random observations.

Other nations also improved, not just the United States. Among advanced nations, Singapore jumped 16 spots and is now tied for #18. There were also double-digit increases for Suriname (up 14 spots, to #56), Cambodia (up 16 spots, to #58), and Botswana (up 22 spots, to #63). The biggest increase was Swaziland, which jumped 25 spots to #91, though it’s worth pointing out that it’s easier to make big jumps for nations with lower initial rankings.

Now let’s look at nations moving in the wrong direction. Among developed nations,Canadadropped 7 spots to #11. Still a very good score, but a very bad trend. It’s also unfortunate to see Poland drop 10 spots, to #32. Looking at developing nations, Brunei Darussalam plummeted an astounding 52 spots, down to #115, followed by Tajikistan, which fell 46 spots to #118. Brazil is alsoworth highlighting, since it plunged 23 spots to #120.

P.S. I don’t know if Moldova,Ukraine, and Russiacount as European countries or Asian nations, but they all rank in the bottom half. In any event, they’re not Western European nations.

Daniel J. Mitchell is a Washington-based economist who specializes in fiscal policy, particularly tax reform, international tax competition, and the economic burden of government spending. He also serves on the editorial board of the Cayman Financial Review.

The pace of job creation slowed dramatically in Obama's last year, and it slowed even more during Trump's first year. (I point this out to show that job creation generally has very little to do with a President's policies even though all Presidents will take credit for gains and blame someone else for losses.)

These days, we are constantly bombarded with one politician or another claiming that his or her new policies, regulations, or tax plans will "create new jobs." Why should we renegotiate trade deals? "Create new jobs." Why should we cut taxes? "Create new jobs." And on and on.

While creating new jobs isn't a bad thing, of course, a lack of jobs also isn't a problem facing our economy right now. There are more than 5 million unfilled jobs in our economy--employers literally cannot fill them all. The problem, therefore, isn't too few jobs; rather, the problem is too few workers. There simply are not enough participants in our labor force to fill even those jobs that are currently available.

Cutting tax rates and reducing regulatory burdens are important (though spending should be cut as well in order to keep these things from piling up more debt for us), but these will not solve the labor force problem. What can we do then? One avenue is to enact policies that increase the labor force participation rate. This is frequently cited as one justification for the need to reform our welfare system. Indeed, our welfare system does need to be reformed: it is too expensive and does not do enough to encourage its recipients to reenter the workforce. That said, increasing the labor force participation rate is a short-term solution--a Band-Aid. Why? Because that means increasing the number of workers out of the population that currently exists.

Therein lies the real problem: regardless of our labor force participation rate, the absolute size of our potential labor force is now shrinking. In order for the labor market to continue growing organically, each American woman must have MORE than 2.1 children. That hasn't been the case in this country in a long time, and as of today, each American woman has an average of only 1.5 children. That means that our organic labor force is shrinking--more and more older people and fewer and fewer younger people.

For a while now, the overall size of our labor force has been growing because of immigration. Americans no longer have enough babies to keep it growing, so we've used immigration to grow. Now immigration is quickly falling off as well, so not only will our labor force resume its overall shrinking, but our population as a whole will begin to shrink. This will mean slower economic growth (perhaps even stagnation eventually), lower government revenue, more debt (all else equal), and standards of living that either don't rise or that rise only very slowly.

If we want to lower our debt, increase our standard of living, increase the rate of economic growth, and increase government revenue without increasing tax rates, then we must ensure that our labor force continues to grow. (This is especially true when one considers how much larger China and India's labor forces are than our own, something that could give them a considerable advantage over us over the long term.) Thus, there really are only two types of policies that we should be pursuing to this end: those that encourage families to have more babies and those that encourage more immigration.*

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We are a monthly book club for anyone who wants to learn more about Libertarianism. We will discuss each book's chapter/section in separate posts, so everyone will be able to read along at their own pace. We typically also focus on books which are available for free so that everyone can participate.

Liberalism is Mises's classic statement in defense of a free society, one of the last statements of the old liberal school and a text from which we can continue to learn. It has been the conscience of a global movement for liberty for 80 years. This new edition, a gorgeous hardback from the Mises Institute, features a new foreword by Tom Woods. It can also be downloaded here.

Ch1, pgs. 18 -26
From Tom Wood's Forward:
“The liberal sets a very high threshold for the initiation of violence. Beyond the minimal taxation necessary to maintain legal and defense services—and some liberals shrink even from this— he denies to the state the power to initiate violence and seeks only peaceful remedies to perceived social ills. He opposes violence for the sake of redistributing wealth, of enriching influential pressure groups, or trying to improve man’s moral condition. Civilized people, says the liberal, interact with each other not according to the law of the jungle, but by means of reason and discussion.”

Intro. Mises:
“If it is maintained that the consequence of a liberal policy is or must be to favor the special interests of certain strata of society, this is still a question that allows of discussion. It is one of the tasks of the present work to show that such a reproach is in no way justified . . . In the customary rhetoric of the demagogues these facts are represented quite differently. To listen to them, one would think that all progress in the techniques of production redounds to the exclusive benefit of a favored few, while the masses sink ever more deeply into misery. However, it requires only a moment’s reflection to realize that the fruits of all technological and industrial innovations make for an improvement in the satisfaction of the wants of the great masses.”

While Mises endeavors to explain liberalism rationally, he says that you can't explain anti-liberalism that way because they are not rational. He calls it Fourierism - a kind of neurosis that is basically envy.

Ch 1 The section on property reminded me a lot of what Rothbard wrote in New Liberty. Not surprising since I am sure Rothbard cited Mises a lot.

On Freedom: “Muddleheaded babblers may therefore argue interminably over whether all men are destined for freedom and are as yet ready for it. They may go on contending that there are races and peoples for whom Nature has prescribed a life of servitude and that the master races have the duty of keeping the rest of mankind in bondage. The liberal will not oppose their arguments in any way because his reasoning in favor of freedom for all, without distinction, is of an entirely different kind. We liberals do not assert that God or Nature meant all men to be free, because we are not instructed in the designs of God and of Nature, and we avoid, on principle, drawing God and Nature into a dispute over mundane questions. What we maintain is only that a system based on freedom for all workers warrants the greatest productivity of human labor and is therefore in the interest of all the inhabitants of the earth.”
​
The section on Peace reminded me of . . .
​

I really liked section 2, talking about how by nature individuals will seek out beneficial relationships through mutual exchange. It's not that we believe that business is benevolent, but that like Adam Smith had said: it is not from their own generosity that the butcher and baker offer their service but of their own livelihood.

Former President Obama has repeatedly tried to infer cryptography is a threat to the /people/ if government doesn't have a skeleton key to everyone's digital house and digital papers by saying "Everyone is walking around with a swiss bank account in their pocket."

The first time I heard him say it out loud some years ago now, I thought to myself "that sounds expletive ideal!" .

The answer to the underlying and ongoing incessant plea by government to give them permission to do what they are already doing without permission, spying on the /people/, is of the form PRIVACY SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED.

Given that the governments have proven themselves without honor and have violated any trust or hope thereof to defend from plunder in the act of plundering themselves, privacy going forward will be kept by intellectual strength. This is not a request, this is an action a person takes, or doesn't take: responsibility for their own digital information security.

If you didn't read the chapter you probably won't get how that all relates together in terms of the shenanigans they've been up to since his observations were originally written. Trusting the other end to hold all the keys and the data has proven unwise, hasn't it?

Ch 1, pgs. 27-41I have some qualms about how Mises frames the discussion on equality. He finds fault with nineteenth century liberals (here I think we can substitute Thomas Jefferson though Mises noticeably does not call him out by name) because they argued for the equality of all men on the basis of natural rights theory. Mises argues that is preposterous because all you have to do is look at people to see they are not equal. But when Jefferson said all men are created equal he certainly did not mean that all men are identical.

Since he rejects equality as a reason for giving equal treatment under the law, he therefore resorts to making utilitarian arguments. He basically says that elites best not deprive the poor and working class of equal treatment because they are outnumbered and will meet resistance - usually bloody. However, you will recall that in New Liberty, Rothbard will argue that it is a mistake to make utilitarian arguments and that we must always argue from first principles.
In section five Mises argues that the luxuries of today inevitably become the necessities of tomorrow. I am glad to know that in the future we will all fly first class, have yachts, chauffeur driven limousines, and luxury boxes at the ballpark.

Section Six: “In requiring of the individual that he should take society into consideration in all his actions, that he should forgo an action that, while advantageous to him, would be detrimental to social life, society does not demand that he sacrifice himself to the interests of others. For the sacrifice that it imposes is only a provisional one: the renunciation of an immediate and relatively minor advantage in “exchange for a much greater ultimate benefit. The continued existence of society as the association of persons working in cooperation and sharing a common way of life is in the interest of every individual.”

In Section Seven, everyone should see the problem with this:
“There is, to be sure, a sect that believes that one could quite safely dispense with every form of compulsion and base society entirely on the voluntary observance of the moral code. The anarchists consider state, law, and government as superfluous institutions in a social order that would really serve the good of all, and not just the special interests of a privileged few. Only because the present social order is based on private ownership of the means of production is it necessary to resort to compulsion and coercion in its defense. If private property were abolished, then everyone, without exception, would spontaneously observe the rules demanded by social cooperation.”

Mises here to me seems to be arguing that anarchism is incompatible with private property. Of course, most of us now understand this to be incorrect and the present-day Mises Institute could be called the Anarcho-Capitalist Institute.

Mises writes: “Liberalism is not anarchism, nor has it anything whatsoever to do with anarchism.”

He may be right about that, which is why Rothbard used the term libertarianism to describe anarcho-capitalism and deliberately distinguished it from liberalism which he viewed as a sort of proto-libertarianism.
​
Mises goes on this same line to a sickening degree in Section Eight. When reading this I thought of this meme, but in place of "proud conservative" I guess you could photoshop Mises' face.

“The champions of democracy in the eighteenth century argued that only monarchs and their ministers are morally depraved, injudicious, and evil. The people, however, are altogether good, pure, and noble, and have, besides, the intellectual gifts needed in order always to know and to do what is right. This is, of course, all nonsense, no less so than the flattery of the courtiers who ascribed all good and noble qualities to their princes.”

That I agree with completely. However, he closes that same section:

“Only a group that can count on the consent of the governed can establish a lasting regime."
So he begins by criticizing democracy and closes by praising it. In between he seems to be making another utilitarian argument in favor of democracy.

Section 10 I like. Basically he argues that fascism at the time of his writing was popular because it was a response to the evils of Bolshevism.

“Many people approve of the methods of Fascism, even though its economic program is altogether antiliberal and its policy completely interventionist, because it is far from practicing the senseless and unrestrained destructionism that has stamped the Communists as the arch-enemies of civilization”

He was very prescient here:

“But when the fresh impression of the crimes of the Bolsheviks has paled, the socialist program will once again exercise its power of attraction on the masses.”

Section 11: Found this depressing considering it was written several decades ago:

“Other countries do not go so far, but nearly everywhere some restrictions are imposed on the sale of opium, cocaine, and similar narcotics."

Mises argues that once you concede government the power to prohibit certain substances you have lost the argument that they should not be able to prohibit certain reading material.

Section 12: He makes another utilitarian argument. The state should be tolerant of religious beliefs, not because every individual has freedom of conscience, but says Mises, because intolerance will lead to social unrest by persecuted religious.

We of course today would prefer no state around to be tolerant or intolerant of anything.
Section 13 Mises wrongly suggests that suppression of conduct detrimental to the social order requires a state. As we saw from Rothbard though that is not the case at all.

Ch 2, pgs. 60-84
In The Organization of the Economy, Mises points out the difference between redistributing capital among the working class and the communal ownership of property, but of course rejects both.

In "The Impracticality of Socialism" he says that while the common criticism that “most men will not exhibit the same zeal in the performance of the duties and tasks assigned to them that they bring to their daily work in a social order based on private property" is correct, it does not get at the heart of the matter: “What renders socialism impracticable is precisely the fact that calculation of this kind is impossible in a socialist society.”

In Sections 2 and 3 Mises says that since the world is not a paradise, people like to direct their unhappiness at the institution of private property and that governments by their very nature always attack private property. Below is a perfect example of that from a recent interview with New York City Mayor DeBlasio.
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Mises says that while many people today understand that private property can not be dispensed with completely, they think government intervention is necessary to even the playing field. He explains though how every single government intervention in the voluntary exchange of goods and services can only make the market less efficient i.e. Back to Hazlitt's consequences seen and unseen.

"Get the equivalent of a Ph.D. in libertarian thought and free-market economics online for just 24 cents a day." Most of us learned politically correct U.S. history in school. The economics was at least as bad.
It's never too late to learn the truth.
At Liberty Classroom, you can learn real U.S. history, Western civilization, and free-market economics from professors you can trust.
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Ch 2, pgs. 85-94​

In section seven Mises argues that we have nothing to fear from natural monopolies. Reminded me of this Tom Woods episode

I would summarize section six as that capitalism is not perfect, just better than any other economic system conceivable. Reminded me of this:

Ch 3, pgs. 105-117Section 3.1 is brief, but I think complex.

Mises argued that for classical liberals, there is no divide between domestic and foreign policy: The same principles that apply to one apply to the other. And I would summarize that principle as non-interventionism: no intervention by government in the domestic economy and no intervention by government in the affairs of foreign governments - i.e. Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.

So far, so good, but

Mises goes on to extol the virtues of cosmopolitanism vis-a-vis nationalism. Also fine. But he then argued a that national unity is itself a product of liberalism. THAT seems to conflict a bit with the point he just made, and quite a bit with the book we read by Tom DiLorenzo where he made the case that DISUNITY within a nation is a force for good when it comes to libertarianism and advocated secession and nullification as tools to advance liberty.

Ch 3, pgs. 118-141Section 3.4 Mises argues that ethic conflicts within heterogeneous nations can only be avoided when said nation completely adopts a liberal program. As per Rothbard though:
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Ch. 4, pgs. 155-169We often hear complaints that libertarianism does not advance due to some failure or another in tactics or strategy on the part of libertarians. In Section 4.1 Mises dismisses that concern saying that liars and tricksters need tactics and strategy but that if people can't see the truth for themselves there is no hope for them.

Mises goes even further:

“Most people do not have even the intellectual endowments required to think through the—after all very complicated—problems of social cooperation, and they certainly do not have the will power necessary to make those provisional sacrifices that all social action demands.”

Well that is certainly downer, leaving all political activity completely useless. (He makes that explicit in the next section). I am left wondering what is the point of his even writing and publishing books if he believes that?

Ch. 4, pgs. 170-187Section 4.3
"There are, therefore, only two parties: the party in power and the one that wants to be in power . . . As their demands are, in principle, limitless, it is impossible for any one of these parties ever to achieve all the ends it envisages . . . Every party seeks, nevertheless, to attain to such influence as will permit it to satisfy its desires as far as possible, while also taking care always to be able to justify to its electors why all their wishes could not be fulfilled."

Section 4.4.
"Society cannot, in the long run, exist if it is divided into sharply defined groups, each intent on wresting special privileges for its own members”

To me that is almost like saying "Society can not in the long run exist. Period." Mises I think unwittingly makes the case for radical individualism. Or It's saying politics will cause society to cease, if we keep it up.

Section 4.5 he returns to the idea that liberals must fight force with ideas not counter-force.
Section 4.6. He returns to the idea that critics of liberalism will claim that liberalism is the special interest of capitalists, but that that is false because capitalism ultimately benefits not just one class of people, but everyone. In a liberal system property rights belong to all, not just to capitalists.

Ch 5In Chapter Five, Mises argues that the enemies of capitalism have lost the debate that alternatives to capitalism can lead to greater material wealth, so they have moved the goalpost and now claim that material wealth is a societal ill. Mises replies though that a return to primitive asceticism would result in the deaths of billions of people.

"Liberalism is no world view because it does not try to explain the cosmos and because it says nothing and does not seek to say anything about the meaning and purpose of human existence . . . It seeks to give men only one thing, the peaceful, undisturbed development of material well-being for all."

SummaryAs I mentioned a few times in earlier chapters, my beef with Mises is that he is a minarchist. That is a step backward after having read Rothbard. Rothbard and Hoppe take the foundation established by Mises to its next logical progression. I know it is not really possible, but it would be great if we could read books in historical order of their logical progression toward anarchy-capitalism. If you want to read the precursors of Mises, the first appendix of this book is a good place to start.
​
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One criticism of cryptocurrencies is their highly speculative nature which has a roller coaster effect on their market value. Extreme returns can be met with losses just as quickly. Determining the true value of a cryptocurrency is extremely difficult to ponder, especially if the crypto doesn't have any clear legitimate use in the real world.

There are also barriers to entry in the public's adoption of cryptocurrencies. It takes savvy to understand blockchain technology, research and select an appropriate online wallet, use private posting keys, etc. It's amazing how few crypto-investors have ever even read a white paper.

The Latium Platform solves for these valuation and these barriers of entry by creating an easy to use market place where anyone willing to complete a task is rewarded with LATX tokens based on smart contracts.

Think of the emergence of the 'gig economy' since the recession of 2008. Services like Uber, Lyft, AirBNB, Fiver, Upwork and others have connected those who want services to those who can provide it worldwide. No longer is employment limited to a local or state employee pool.

The Latium Team will be releasing the Alpha version of the Latium Platform Friday, December 29th, 2017. Even though many who aren't crypto-savvy won't be purchasing tokens outright, they will be able to create a Latium account and receive crypto from completing tasks.

By implementing a smart contract-based, global reputation system, Latium aims to disrupt the multi-billion global labor market through the blockchain and make the employer-employee relationship more transparent. ​

The Latium platform can be used for task creation, meaning that anyone needing a task completed (logo design, ride-share, assassination) can now use LATX to pay for the labor. This gives LATX an intrinsic value within the system rather than the purely speculative value given to most cryptocurrencies and tokens.

This platform will also integrate a reputation system which will make the entire employee/employer relationship much more transparent while also filtering out spam and unwanted content.

1. Lower unemployment rate
2. Higher level of efficiency in output for platforms like social media sites and apps3. Reduction in the rate of spamming in community driven platforms
4. Most importantly, the widespread adoption of LATX as it is more utilized in commerce by common-folk.

Go check out Latium's platform and get in on their token sale while they are still offering bonuses!

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There's some good news and some bad news as we roll into Christmas vacation.

Since I like to end with good news whenever possible, I'll start with the bad.
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The first topic I wanted to mention is the GOP tax plan. Actually, the news isn't all bad. For this one, it's both good and bad--a mixed bag. There are two parts to this: how the plan was constructed and the merits of the plan itself.

The way in which the plan was constructed is one of the universally negative aspects of the bill and is a prime example of how poorly Washington functions.

The bill, whose partial initial purpose was to simplify our tax code, ballooned in a matter of weeks to nearly 500 pages and many hundreds of thousands of words. (So much for simplification, right?) On top of that, it was written entirely by Congressional Republicans. There was no attempt to reach across the aisle. There was no attempt to seek the CBO's input. In fact, the bill was thrown together so quickly that the CBO didn't have time to score it, most think tanks didn't get a chance to weigh in on the entire text, and members of Congress--Republicans--were admitting that they didn't have time to read much of it.

This is a reform effort that will dramatically impact both our economy and our government's finances, and it appears to have been done in haste and without much due diligence.

As evidence of this, consider what happened 20 December.

Only after having voted for the bill did the House discover that portions of it violate Senate rules. Now the House will have to vote on it again on 21 December.

Businesses don't run this way. Most Americans don't run their lives this way. Our government shouldn't run this way either.

That said, the bill that emerged actually wasn't all bad. So what about its merits? First and foremost, it thoroughly overhauled our corporate tax system. It may well be the most significant corporate overhaul ever. Among other things, it reduced the corporate tax rate to 21% and switched the U.S. to a territorial rather than a global tax system.

It created incentives for companies to bring cash back to our country too. This is universally a good thing. Our corporate income tax system was incredibly uncompetitive. Even with these major changes, we're not even close to the most competitive country out there. We're in the thick of the pack now though. These changes were long, long overdue. This will promote growth, increase the number of jobs, and could increase investment as well. (That part remains to be seen. There are good arguments both ways.)

There were also substantial changes to the personal income tax system. This is where the both-good-and-bad part starts to come into the equation. There were many changes to the way that our personal income tax system works. For the first few years after the bill's passage, most Americans will see a very small reduction in their tax bills. That's where the good part ends though.

Some Americans will actually have their tax burden increased. Even though their income tax rates may fall, the fact that so many deductions are being eliminated means that they may still end up having to pay more than they did before this bill (we're looking at you Californians). Even for those Americans who do experience a reduction, it is likely to be relatively small. After around 2020, almost half of Americans could actually be paying more in taxes than they would have under the "old" system. Unfortunately, the half of Americans who are having their tax burden increased are the half who earn the smaller amount of income. Those who earn more will get to keep their reduced burden for longer.

By 2025, almost all of the personal income tax changes will then expire. That's right: The personal income tax deductions were not made permanent. They are temporary. This means that whether the personal income tax changes were a good or a bad thing isn't immediately obvious. Clearly most Americans would agree that having more money--even in one year--is good for them. There's quite a bit of evidence, however, that temporary tax cuts have very little impact on the economy, can create imbalances and even bubbles, and can even harm Americans who plan their budgets around their new tax rates only to find them shoot up again shortly thereafter.

I believe that politicians at that time will just extend the tax cuts permanently (they are seeking reelection, after all). This will throw off all of the accounting tricks that make this bill ONLY cost an additional $1Trillion in debt... It will then cost more.

On the whole, the bill makes a large number of necessary, long overdue changes. I can't shake the feeling that this was also an enormous missed opportunity though. The original goal of simplifying the tax code wasn't met. Both the corporate and individual codes remain as long and as complicated as they've ever been. On top of that, as I said, many of the bill's provisions are temporary anyway.

This brings me to my last point and the one point that is unquestionably bad: Why are those provisions temporary? The short answer: They almost certainly had to be. This last point is my primary concern with the bill and is the only true reason that I question the wisdom of the bill as it is currently written. (There are ways to reform our tax code without piling trillions of dollars in additional debt onto our backs.)

The previous sentence is the point: This bill adds a tremendous amount of new debt to our government. At an absolute minimum, it will add an additional nearly $500 billion to our national debt (according to The Tax Foundation). Most other analysis puts that total closer to $1 trillion or even $1.5 trillion. Bear in mind that that is debt above and beyond what we'd have already accumulated. We'll still be accumulating the "other" debt too.

Republicans are now up against a harsh reality. They've campaigned for years on cutting the tax burden. For years--decades even--our government had a small enough debt load that we could easily have done this without significant adverse impact. The cold, hard reality now though is that we have such an enormous debt load (105% of GDP) that we're actually quite constrained in how much--and for how long--we can reduce people's tax burdens without causing government solvency problems.

Thus, Republicans opted to have most of this tax bill's changes expire in less than a decade in order to slow the accumulation of debt.
​

This is why Republicans have actually added more to the national debt than Democrats have. We want to increase military spending, increase infrastructure spending, and keep welfare spending the same (apparently) but reduce the government's revenue. If that's what you plan to do, then there's only one way to fund it: more debt. In other words, young people today and people yet to be born are having their futures mortgaged. This is IMMORAL, even if it means we save 4% on our tax bills, personally.

After all of this new debt is accumulated, what will happen? Well, our rates will go right back up again. We'll be back where we started, only with a lot more debt. What, then, did we really accomplish for individuals? In all likelihood, we've hurt them over the long term for one reason. Mark my words: Our debt load is so large and growing so quickly, that bickering over the temporary nature of tax cuts will one day seem to be a luxury. Unless we get our fiscal house in order, we are only borrowing from people's futures. A day is coming when our tax rates will have to be RAISED in order to keep our government solvent. Eventually our debt will impose realities like that. This is what we are setting ourselves up for.

The Republicans like to think that their tax cuts generate enough new growth to pay for themselves. The reality, of course, is that they don't. Even the most politically conservative analysis supports me on this.

They do cause some additional growth, but they don't cause enough to fully pay for cuts, and they never have. Not a single tax cut package has ever fully paid for itself with new growth. That's why you must cut spending. Cutting spending is how you make the equation balance. We tell ourselves that our tax cuts mean that we don't have to cut spending because the lower tax rates will generate enough new growth to pay for themselves. This is only a psychological need: We tell ourselves this so that we feel better about the long-term problems we know that our debt accumulation will cause. We want to believe it. The problem is that it simply isn't true. (On a side note, we're likely to experience even less growth from this tax bill now than we would have a couple of decades ago when we first started talking about it because our labor force is now shrinking. Regardless of tax rates, there's only so much new growth that can be generated from a shrinking labor force. We don't have enough babies and now also discourage immigration. There isn't a third way to grow a population or a labor force over the long term.)
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Anyway, I said that I'd end on a positive note, and I will. The new national security strategy that Trump announced yesterday is tremendous. It places additional emphasis on jihadist networks, as well it should. It shines a spotlight evermore directly at North Korea, as well it should.

The most important aspect is this though: It labeled China a "strategic competitor." You can bet that that is absolutely true. China is not a friend of the United States or of the global trade and sovereignty rules whereby the U.S.-led system operates. China sees themselves very much in competition with the U.S., and it's time we stepped up to the plate. China plays on a market field that has no foul lines. It's time for us to level that playing field.

While many Americans are complaining about Mexico's impact on our economy (which, contrary to much of what is shared on Facebook, actually provides an enormous boost to our economy), China steals our long-term prosperity. When it comes to engaging with the rest of the world, China looks out for China first. Thus, when it comes to engaging China, we should look out for ourselves first.

Sometimes diplomacy is called for, but most of the time you need to call something what it is. The era of holding China's hand and pretending that they're are our friend must end. China is a competitor that plays by its own rules at the expense of Americans' economic interests, and it's time for us to meet that challenge head on.

I applaud Trump for making this change. It's time. Let's gear up and fight for our long-term economic wellbeing.

But in a Free Market, if they continue to screw someone over or charge too high of prices, people will stop using their services and it’s an opportunity for another business to undercut them. They go out of business if they can’t offer the best product at the cheapest prices, because someone else will. Because "Profit Motive".
There are entire YELP-like industries designed around measuring how well companies
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This entire Net Neutrality Debate is simplified in one question.

Do you trust "The Government" or "The Market" more?
This is the only question you need ask yourself.

Let's discuss all these atrocities they are saying 'could occur'.... Why haven't we seen them from 1994-2014, twenty years with NO NET NEUTRALITY at all, and none of these horrors occurred.
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Sure some companies had some fights and guess what they all solved it and moved on. It never affected you for a moment, you didn't even know it happened until the TV or the great Facebook told you about it.

The internet is the most awesome tech ever created, why?

More than two decades to evolve free of regulation, that is why.
Some are too young, you don't remember how regulation has always been the problem and never once been the solution. When phones were highly regulated, great screams poured out when deregulation was proposed. They said it would be 'suicide for our communication networks and capabilities'.
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"The corporations will charge you for every feature", "Long distance will triple!", "They will shut your phone off if you say something they don't like!", "they will tap your phone", on and on it went....any of this sound familiar?
​

Jack Spirko reminds us what telephone service was like before DEREGULATION?

I’m talking about back in the good old days when it was highly regulated?
Here are some facts about that time...
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You could not own a phone you had to rent it!

You could not unplug a phone and move it, they said you could damage the system or kill yourself because you were untrained (YES REALLY, similar to why ‘trained attendants' have to pump my gas for me when I drive through New Jersey). They would plug your phone in and staple the jack in. If you wanted to move your phone you had to pay to have a tech come move it to a new jack.

If you wanted a second phone in your house again you had to pay a phone tech to come install it. Over $100 (in 1980 dollars) to plug in a phone! Yes, seriously!

Long distance was over 1 dollar a minute; “in-state long distance” was higher.

But “oh please, please almighty government that has screwed up EVERYTHING else it has ever touched, come regulate the internet just a little bit.”
​

The sheep are so easily led by a terms "net neutrality" and “free and open internet”, it all sounds so nice right?

It actually amounts to one thing "government regulation of the internet", every time you hear or read the term “net neutrality”, translate it in your head to read"government regulation of the internet" and see how much support you have for it in a week or two. Go check out these and other chunks of wisdom at The Survival Podcast.
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But what about GEOGRAPHICALLY disparate communities with only one provider?!

First research this: Why aren't there competing ISPs where you live? Does your local ISP have a monopoly that was granted to them from government regulation? Or does the cost of internet infrastructure truly outweigh the population in an area?
If there is no incentive to bring a second company into such a small population, chock that up to your 'cost of living in the boonies."

​The argument that "Cheap Abundant Internet is a Right because everything we do is online" will be withheld for another time (it's not).

There are never really any true monopolies, even Standard Oil would see competitors the moment they increased prices.

The ‘out in the boonies’ problem you have can probably only be fixed with a US Postal Service-style monopoly. But then you’d be getting USPS Government quality Internet.

The problem we have in this case (geographically, only one provider) is the kind of problem that the market corrects for, over time, though. It spurs the next innovation that will reduce the cost of DSL/Satellite solutions which will free us of the old physical fiber lines.

Just think, the 'telephone poles' we are so accustomed to seeing in our neighborhoods are 99% obsolete for telephone connectivity these days. Who has telephones in their house anymore?

Let the market innovate out of your problem. Yes, I know that means it sucks in the meantime.
​

Final Thoughts

If the internet would be SO AWFUL without net neutrality why was it awesome from 1994-2014 when we had nothing even approaching "net neutrality" for those 20 years?

If it’s meant to help ‘the little guy’ compete with large media, then why is large media lobbying to get it passed?

Could it possibly be that large media LOVES legislation that they can lobby for that helps them and hurts others?

Could it be that large media firms can afford the teams of lawyers needed to comply with large regulation, knowing that the startup “little guy” can’t?
Most people who hate big business these days don’t even understand that these big businesses have politicians in their pockets in order to protect their market share and protect them from the ‘little guy’ who can innovate to make things better and cheaper for us.

Just think, if government started regulating the net in 1994, you'd still hear modem noises followed by "YOU'VE GOT MAIL" every time you logged on 23 years later!
​
Thanks Free Market!
​

Don't Fall for the Following Scare Tactics in Hopes Government can get Involved

​We are a monthly book club for anyone who wants to learn more about Libertarianism. We will discuss each book's chapter/section in separate posts, so everyone will be able to read along at their own pace. We typically also focus on books which are available for free so that everyone can participate. Join the Private Facebook Group and follow us on Twitter as we seek to learn more about Libertarianism.

Politics and thieves, coercion and regulation, fascism and the Fed, centralization and liberty, workers and unions, trade and freedom, free-market achievements and government disasters in American history — this book covers it all!

Section 1: Coercion and Regulation

I thought his synopsis and examples from Forty Centuries of Wage and Price Control: How NOT to Fight Inflation was solid. I’ll be adding it to my reading list. Unfortunately, no AudioBook version!

The “DiLorenzo’s Laws of Government” are pretty solid. I’ll need to expound on them later in a longer article and have them somewhere where I can share them easier when I’m arguing with people who want bigger government. They resounded with me as I think they will with others.

• DiLorenzo’s First Law of Government- In government, failure is success. Welfare Bureaucracy, Government Schools, NASA tragedies and the Federal Reserve, etc.

• DiLorenzo’s Second Law of Government- Politicians will rarely, if ever, assume responsibility for any of the problems that they cause with bad policies.

• DiLorenzo’s Third Law of Government- With few exceptions, politicians are habitual liars.

• DiLorenzo’s Fourth Law of Government- Politicians will only take the advice of their legions of academic advisers if the advice promises to increase the state’s power, wealth, and influence even if the politicians know that the advice is bad for the rest of society.

I also agreed that the price control section was timely after the debate we just endured following Hurricane Irma. I've written EXTENSIVELY about it here on my Steemit blog. How is it that The Continental Congress wisely adopted an anti-price control resolution on June 4, 1778 but it's still up for debate the negative effects?

That Resolution read:

“Whereas it hath been found by experience that limitations upon the prices of commodities are not only ineffectual for the purpose proposed, but likewise productive of very evil consequences—resolved, that it be recommended to the several states to repeal or suspend all laws limiting, regulating or restraining the price of any Article.”

If they knew price controls always failed 240 years ago, why is it even a question today? I blame education, or lack thereof.

Chapter 3 Who Will Regulate the Regulators
​
The logic on ‘providing more power to the Fed in order to prevent another Great Recession” was spot on:

“One of the biggest governmental lies is that financial markets are unregulated and in dire need of more central planning by government. Laissez-faire is said to have caused the “Great Recession.” Fed bureaucrats have lobbied for some kind of Super Regulatory Authority to supposedly remedy this problem. Th is is all a lie because according to one of the Fed’s own publications (“The Federal Reserve System: Purposes and Functions”), the Fed already has “supervisory and regulatory authority” over the following partial list of activities: bank holding companies, state-chartered banks, foreign branches of member banks, edge and agreement corporations, U.S. state-licensed bank branches, agencies and representative offices of foreign banks, nonbanking activities of foreign banks, national banks, savings banks, nonbank subsidiaries of bank holding companies, thrift holding companies, financial reporting procedures of banks, accounting policies of banks, business “continuity” in case of economic emergencies, consumer protection laws, securities dealings of banks, information technology used by banks, foreign investment by banks, foreign lending by banks, branch banking, bank mergers and acquisitions, who may own a bank, capital “adequacy standards,” extensions of credit for the purchase of securities, equal opportunity lending, mortgage disclosure information, reserve requirements, electronic funds transfers, interbank liabilities, Community Reinvestment Act sub-prime lending “demands,” all international banking operations, consumer leasing, privacy of consumer financial information, payments on demand deposits, “fair credit” reporting, transactions between member banks and their affiliates, truth in lending, and truth in savings.”​
​

Chapter 5: Our Totalitarian Regulatory Bureaucracy​
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“In chapter 5 of F.A. Hayek’s 1944 classic, Th e Road to Serfdom, the Nobel laureate warned that the state need not directly control all or even most of the means of production to exert totalitarian control over the economic life of a nation. He cited the example of Germany where, as of 1928, “the central and local authorities directly control 53 percent” of the German economy. In addition to this, wrote Hayek, private industry in Germany was so heavily regulated that the state indirectly controlled “almost the whole economic life of the nation.” It was through such totalitarian controls that Germany traveled down “the road to serfdom.” As Hayek further stated, “there is, then scarcely an individual end which is not dependent for its achievement on the action of the state, and the ‘social scale of values’ which guides the state’s action must embrace practically all individual ends.” In other words, government regulation was so pervasive that the pursuit of profit, driven by consumer preferences, was mostly replaced by the whims of regulatory bureaucrats.”

Well Said:

“First, construct a totally unrealistic theory of “perfect” competition that assumes away all real-world competition with assumptions of perfect information, homogenous products and prices, free or costless entry and exit from industry, and “many” firms. Second, compare real-world markets to this utopian Nirvana state and condemn the markets as “imperfect” or “failed. The third characteristic of market failure theories is to recommend intervention by presumably perfect government that is assumed to suffer from no failures and which will correct the failures of the market.”

When I read that, it reminded me of this.

Section 2

I read DiLorenzo's Real Lincoln which I highly recommend. I like how in chapter nine he describes Rod Blogajevich as an amateur crook compared to Honest Abe. It is not just a matter of businesses contributing to campaigns to get political favors but politicians using threat of regulations to extort contributions.

Chapter 11

Good point on the housing bubble:

“So when the Fed’s expansionary monetary policy caused the real estate bubble, the extraordinary increases in property values were accompanied by equally extraordinary property tax increases. (After the bubble had burst, local governments were eager to raise property tax rates so as not to lose property tax revenue."

Chapter 12

“A principle of public choice economics is that politicians will always do all they can to disguise subsidies to less-than-meritorious groups, such as millionaire corporate farmers. If they can subsidize them through protectionism, or price supports, this is much preferred than simply writing the millionaire businessman a check.”

Chapter 13

He discusses Hamilton and I recommend the Tom Woods vs Michael Malice debate (in which I side with Tom.

Chapter 15

He expands a bit on the idea he expressed earlier of why exactly mainstream media is so pro-government.

Section 3

I agree with DiLorenzo that secession, nullification, decentralization and localism is more effective at achieving liberty than nationalism or universalism, but it is important to understand, “Of course “states” don’t have rights; only individuals do." Since he understands that I think it is confusing that he keeps using the phrase.

I definitely agree with him that repeal of the seventeenth amendment would greatly improve our situation. But that that seems highly unlikely to ever happen.

Chapter 17

The Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions. I read this short book a few years ago and highly recommend it.

“The Lacrosse, Wisconsin Democrat newspaper advocate assassination when it editorialized in November of 1864 that “If Abraham Lincoln should be reelected for another term of four years of such wretched administration, we hope that a bold hand will be found to plunge the dagger into the tyrant’s heart for the public welfare.” (Does that violate the NAP?)

Chapter 22

DiLorenzo basically says that Abraham Lincoln and Adolph Hitler were brothers from another mother.

Chapter 23

He points out that governments are by far the worst killers in history and that in that regard Abraham Lincoln was worse than Pol Pot.

Chapter 25

DiLorenzo eviscerates Paul Krugman, which is always fun.

“Krugman is right about democracy in a sense: Democracy is essentially one big organized act of bullying whereby a larger group bullies a smaller group in order to plunder it with taxes. The “Civil War” proved that whenever a smaller group has finally had enough, and attempts to leave the game, the larger group will resort to anything—even the mass murder of hundreds of thousands and the bombing and burning of entire cities—to get its way.”

In these chapters he does still more debunking of the Lincoln mythology. I did notice though that he doesn't claim that the War of Northern Aggression was an unmitigated evil - just mostly evil with terrible consequences, but he does acknowledge that the abolition of slavery was the one positive outcome of the war.

He also discusses how American government is both fascist and socialist.

Chapter 30 – 33

These chapters are all about the evils of central banking.

I agree completely and have nothing to add except that coincidentally yesterday, before reading chapter 30, I used a very similar article by DiLorenzo to counter a commenter on this post who was saying that all economists think the Fed is great and that basically Ron is a crank.

That post and Brion's book should be of interest to anyone who liked that chapter.

Ch 32 reminded me of this meme.
​

Chapter 34

This chapter debunks the notion that the Federal Reserve is in any way libertarian just because Alan Greenspan was head of it once.

Chapter 35

Debunks the myth that the Fed is in any way independent - Fed chairmen basically do the bidding of the president in order to maintain their jobs. President wants loose policy? President gets loose policy, and vice versa.

I liked his discussion on the damage done by typical college economics textbooks, particularly Paul Samuelson's, which is most popular.

Chapter 36

Explains how government caused the sub-prime mortgage meltdown.
This is useful because people often try to blame DE-regulation when nothing could be further from the truth.

As an aside, I found The Big Short an entertaining movie on the subject if you have not seen it, but it largely leaves unmentioned government as a cause and this chapter definitely fills in the blanks.

Section 5Chapter 47

Macroeconomists Discover Economics and Debunk the New Deal (Again) is probably the most intriguing to me. Seven decades of economists who have sold us the line that the New Deal and large-scale government spending is what got us out of the Great Depression.
It took several decades but macroeconomic model builders, who consider themselves to be the elite of the economics profession, have finally discovered freshman-level principles of economics and have used that discovery to finally debunk FDR’s New Deal. (Beginning in the 1930s Austrian School economists like Henry Hazlitt recognized the truth about the New Deal: It made the Great Depression deeper and longer lasting.)

The only wise thing to have done was to have allowed the liquidation of hundreds of overcapitalized businesses to occur, cut taxes and spending, and deregulate. Instead, the Fed increased the money supply by 100 percent in a failed attempt to create another bubble while the president and Congress implemented an explosion of government interventionism. That was the

first time in American history that a depression was responded to with government interventionism rather than governmental retrenchment, and the result was a seventeen-year long Great Depression, the worst in history.

That mainstream macroeconomists and their modeling have come around against governmental interventionism during a depression is great. Now, if the citizenry can learn that before the next bubble pops. I foresee politicians and special interests will use the next crisis as an opportunity to line their pockets.

CHAPTER 48

Will Socialism Make You Happier? The Trojan Horse of “Happiness Research”I hadn't heard of this statist argument before but basically
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"...statists around the world are changing their tune and saying that prosperity doesn’t really matter after all; what matters is how happy we are. And, they say, that is what government can be really, really good at—making us happy. Consequently, they argue, there should be no more limits on governmental powers, for limiting governmental powers will limit our very happiness."

In the year this book was published, Bhutan was the 'Happiest' according to the UN-sponsored "World Happiness Report". Yes, Bhutan. This hellhole, ahem, I mean paradise:

As an intelligence officer which has experience in this part of the world... No.

This year's winner is Norway, which is much more beautiful and bearable.Source:WORLD HAPPINESS REPORT 2017 It's also a lot more socialist, which to be fair, is the point. It's edited by leftist academic Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University, what else would you expect?

As F.A. Hayek commented in The Road to Serfdom, the end of socialism was always egalitarianism; only the means changed over time, beginning with government ownership of the means of production and transforming to income redistribution through a welfare state and a “progressive” income tax.

These happiness researchers never make any mention at all of the well documented pathologies created by welfare statism, such as the destruction of the work ethic, family breakup, the growth of dysfunctionality caused by a welfare state that removes people from the working population, etc.

Thus, “happiness research” is part of a crusade to persuade the public that poverty and servitude to the state are superior to prosperity and freedom. It is a new version of what twentieth-century communists referred to as “socialism with a smiling face” during the last, dying days of totalitarian communism.

Chapter 49

The Canard of “Asymmetric Information” as a Source of Market FailureGood information on the Nirvana Theory of Markets. I tried to look more into it, but it is unique to only this writing.

Nirvana Fallacy— comparing real-world markets to an unattainable utopian ideal (perfect competition), and then denouncing markets because they fall short of utopia or Nirvana. Having “proven” that markets “fail,” the analyst then proposes government intervention under the assumption that no such failures will infect government. Markets may not be perfect, but government is assumed to be.

Overall, I liked Section 5 the best. The ease at which he demystifies economic myths is extremely understandable. I just wish it was taken onboard by many voters who refuse to heed the empirical evidence against government intervention.

Asymmetric information problem really applies to government not the free market:

“In this case we are dealing with the well-established fact that, in their capacity as voters, people tend to be “rationally ignorant” of almost all of what government does. In fact, government is so pervasive that no human mind could possibly comprehend the tiniest fraction of one percent of what government in a country the size of the U.S. does. Consequently, special-interest groups dominate all democratic governments;”

A related problem I think is that "public servants" are allowed to keep secrets from their supposed masters.

Chapter 51

“Politicians perpetuate the myth of government job creation because the government jobs that are created are seen by the average voter, whereas the private-sector jobs that are destroyed (or never created) are not.”

DiLorenzo shoots down the gender wage gap myth. Tom Woods has done a couple of shows on this subject as well, as I recall.
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Summary

DiLorenzo lays out a decent criticism of how Government, corrupted by size and motive, has engaged in forceful and deceitful acts against the populace.
​
To be honest, I really dislike collections of articles such as this and found in other "books". If an author is still alive, such collections are always better to be formed in to a true book that is able to cleanly explain a subject from start to finish. While DiLorenzo's articles are well written (and are quite often sourced with citations! Such a rarity among articles), the execution of the message would have been much better had he taken the time to write these out in to full chapters of their own.

The topics covered in the book were good ones to discuss (though I think that the mentions of the Civil war would be better served in a separate book), but I do wish that the author had expanded more on the topics of taxation, subsidies, and the enforcement of victimless crimes.
Overall a good read, and some articles were absolutely fantastic. If only the author could have written this out as an actual book and added another hundred pages or so, this could have been something especially fantastic.

edit: I've decided to give the book 5 stars, from the original 4. I find that I often go back to the book to re-read certain articles when I come across various topics of discussion. I still wish that the author had written a proper book instead of just compiling a collection of his articles, though.

We want to hire our first employees. In case anyone has any doubt whatsoever about how much more difficult/worse the government makes things for employers and employees (excluding income taxes and 15.3% Social Security & Medicare taxes!), check this out:

We have to worry about "wrongful termination." Federal, state, and city law prohibit discrimination/harassment on the basis of the following protected categories: Race, color, religion, creed, national origin or ancestry, ethnicity, sex (including pregnancy), gender (including gender nonconformity and status as a transgender individual), age, physical, mental, or perceived disability, alienage or citizenship, past, current, or prospective service in the uniformed services, genetic predisposition or carrier status, familial status, marital status, sexual orientation (including actual or perceived heterosexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality, and asexuality), partnership status, and victim of domestic violence status.

We have to comply with the "Fair Labor Standards Act," NY labor law, and the NY minimum wage ($12/hour effective 12/31/17). We have to comply with the "New York Paid Family Leave Act," and the "NYC Paid Sick Leave Law." We've been advised by both an accountant and an employment lawyer that we must retain a payroll provider just to be able to keep up with the constantly changing government rules.

We have to register with NY State as an employer. During the process, they ask questions that you literally can't know the answer to at the time you're registering. They also ask probing questions such as, "Does anyone work for you that you don't consider to be an employee?" And guess what? The guidelines around what constitutes an employee versus a contractor are so vague that a lawyer who specializes in employment and a lawyer who specializes in our field can't definitively advise us on what we can do to know whether we're complying with the law.

We have to report to the NYS Department of Taxation and Finance, comply with the "Wage Theft Prevention Act," and the "Immigration Reform and Control Act."

We have to purchase workers' compensation insurance, "NY State Disability Insurance," and "Unemployment Insurance," which "starts" as a 4-5% tax (you have to wait for the State to tell you after you register) and, presumably, goes up from there based on how well our company is doing. (There's also another business tax on top of everything else that kicks in once we hit some arbitrary amount of profit.)

We need to deliver "workplace postings" to every employee, even though we don't have a physical office. There's a whole industry around this because the government doesn't even provide the information in any kind of easily accessible way. (Check out complianceposter.com for fun.)

What a productive use of our time, energy, and the valuable resources we need to grow! I'm sure our customers love paying higher prices, since they have plenty of disposable income. I bet the people we hire actually prefer having chunks of money taken out of their pay before they get it, because they know they're going to get every inflation-adjusted dollar back someday, and more!

Hey, at least we have a government making sure that we don't do anything "wrong." Otherwise we could lie, cheat, and steal, since that's how you succeed in business! And at least we have a government doing everything possible to encourage our business to grow so that we can create jobs and prosperity!

Can't wait to discover what other nonsense we have to deal with. These things do nothing but hurt everyone involved.

MORE FROM LIBERTYLOL:

I've been watching the health care debate over the last few weeks very closely. It's one of the most important policy challenges facing this country--second only to the national debt and the economy. So far, it seems that the GOP's strategy can best be summarized in the following manner.

PLAN A: Quickly, quietly, and in the most partisan manner possible, secretively draft a very bad piece of health care legislation and then rush it out for a vote before the rest of Congress or the public can read it and see how bad it is.

Result: Failed (in a matter of days).

PLAN B: Quickly, quietly, and in the most partisan manner possible, secretively draft a very bad piece of health care legislation that makes only the bare minimum of improvements on Plan A's bill and then rush it out for a vote before the rest of Congress or the public can read it and see how bad it is.

Result: Failed (in a matter of days).

PLAN C: Simply give up on any sort of reform at all and instead just repeal Obamacare.

Result: Failed (the very next day).

PLAN D: Simply give up even on efforts to repeal Obamacare, hope it fails (no matter how many Americans that hurts), and then see if we can quickly, quietly, and in the most partisan manner possible, secretively draft a very bad piece of health care legislation and then rush it out for a vote before the rest of Congress or the public can read it and see how bad it is.

Result: Does it really matter? (If the plan succeeds, then the country fails. If the plan fails, then the country fails.)

CAVEAT 1 TO PLANS A THROUGH D: If possible, vote on bills before the CBO has had a chance to evaluate them because when you've written bad bills, objective assessments are not your friend.

CAVEAT 2 TO PLANS A THROUGH D: If possible, convince junior members of Congress to ignore the fact that insurance companies, doctor groups, patient groups, government researchers, university researchers, and non-profits all oppose the bill--a rare instance of complete unity across the health care stakeholder spectrum. (In other words, convince more junior members of Congress to ignore the fact that the only people who support these bills are the more senior members of Congress who paid staffers to write the bills for no other reason than to be able to say that they fulfilled a campaign promise. They might as well just pass a blank sheet of paper that says "Obamacare Repeal" and then pat themselves on the proverbial back.)

The political calculation of Mitch McConnell, who is quite possibly one of the worst Republican leaders currently living--and very near the worst even if we also include those who are no longer living as well as those who have never lived--also is absolutely impossible for more rational minds to grasp. First he decides to put up for vote a bill that stands no chance of passing. No surprise here: It fails. Then he calculates that drafting another bill that stands no chance of passing is just what the doctor (no pun intended) ordered. Lo and behold, it fails too! Finally, he decides simply to repeal Obamacare outright, and what do you know: This effort failed before he'd even written the bill.

He has now nearly single-handedly assured the GOP, which is running the least productive government in history, of a significant black eye in next year's elections. Let's be honest: Even though I'm a Republican, I'm well aware that since the GOP took control of the government, absolutely nothing has happened that would give the American people any confidence that we are actually able to govern. The GOP can't pass bills through Congress even though we control BOTH houses of Congress, and we certainly aren't bothering to lift a finger to bring on board any Democratic support. (They did this to us, so we should do it to them, right? The American people are paying us large salaries simply to do unto the others as they did unto us, right?)

What ever happened to reaching across the aisle, sitting down in good faith, and speaking in terms of what is good and bad for the American people? What ever happened to setting aside partisanship and simply committing to drafting the best piece of health care legislation possible? What ever happened to the idea that it's better to do something right or to not do it at all? What ever happened to the idea that it's better to do something right than to do it fast? What ever happened to wanting to craft into legislation ideas that would garner overwhelming support, not ones that are considered an utter blowout if they can pass one house of Congress by just one vote?

What ever happened to the fact that the point of being in office isn't to defeat the other side but is to win for the American people?

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